It's that time again, the start of a new school year. The first day of school is an important one for both teachers and students. This important school day can also be a bit nerve-wracking. When children come to school on the first day they tend to be a little anxious for a number of reasons. They're meeting new teachers, in new classrooms, reuniting with old friends from last year, and feeling the pressure of making new friends this school year. As a teacher you need to be understanding about these first-day jitters and help students get to know one another and feel comfortable by using the best back to school classroom activities. There are so many "ice-breaker" games and first-day activities out there to use at the start of a school year.
Here are a few math lesson ideas you might want to use in your classroom for the first day back to school.
Birthday Bar Graph - Using twelve unique colors, cut some construction paper up into strips. Organize these strips into twelve stacks, with each color representing one of the twelve months. Have the students get a strip of paper in the color that represents their birth month. The students should then write their names on one end of this strip of paper and their birthdays on the opposite end. Have the students with birthdays in January arrange their birthdays in chronological order and attach the strips of paper to a birthday bulletin board. Do this for each month. Make sure that you put a label above each colored bar. Once the class is finished putting up their papers you'll have a great class display that will help you and the class to remember these very special dates.
Chrysanthemum Math - Read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes aloud to the class. Discuss the fact that the main character has thirteen letters in her name, half as many letters as there are in the alphabet. Have students figure out how many letters are in their first names. Then move on and have the class try to determine how many more letters Chrysanthemum has in her name than in theirs. Get the class to find the student with the shortest name in the classroom. Move on to a graphing activity to show how many students have four, five, six, etc. letters in their first name. For a final challenge, see if the students can figure out how many letters are in all of the students first names together. The graph can help the students to figure out this total.
Numbers About Me - Give the students a quiz that's all about you. All of the questions' answers should be numbers. For example, you might ask what year you were born, how many years you've been teaching, how old you are, how many pets you own, or what your height is. The students have to try and guess the correct numbers for each of those questions. You could also have the students answer their own "Numbers About Me" quiz and use those sheets in another icebreaker activity..
The Math Curse - Read the book The Math Curse by Jon Scieszka aloud to the class. This is a book about a boy who sees numbers wherever he goes. The character realizes that the world is one giant math problem. After your read the book, get the students to explore their new classroom and find things that can be turned into math problems. Have them think about things in their life that relate to math or that could be turned into a math problem. Have the students write down these discovered math problems and present them to the class.
Missing Math - Another good book to read aloud on the first day of school would be Missing Math: A Number Mystery by Loreen Leedy. This is a great book to read to younger students who want to know why they need math and how they use it every day. Encourage a class discussion after the book or you could even get the students involved in a creative writing activity that talks about the ways that math is most important to them.
My Math Window - Have the students create their own math windows. Give the students construction paper that has been divided into 9 squares. Have each student write their name on the center square. At the top of each of the remaining boxes, have the students put down numbers that mean something to them (birthday, address, telephone number, number of siblings, jersey number, etc.) and then draw an illustration below those numbers to show what they represent. After everyone is finished, have the class present their math windows to the class. Display them around the room.
What's That Number - Write different numbers on index cards. Make sure you have enough for each student. Have all of the students face the same direction and tape these numbered index cards to their backs. It will be the students' jobs to figure out what number they have on their back by asking questions of their classmates. The students must introduce themselves and then ask their classmates yes and no questions about their numbers. For example, they might ask if the number is even, if it is greater or lesser than a specific number, or if it has two digits. They can only ask the same person three questions. Once they reach that three-question limit the students must move on to another classmate if they still haven't figured out the answer.
The Counting Game - Get your students into groups of three to five. Have them stand in a circle with their hands behind their back. When the signal sounds, each student should bring their hands to the front, holding up anywhere between zero and ten fingers. The group must then figure out the sum of all of the fingers being held up in their group. The first group to yell out the answer wins the round. Do this several times until you have the two top groups identified. Have those two groups face off until you can find the champion team.
Student Number Lines - Have the students get into groups of five to ten (the larger the group, the harder the activity will be). The students must order themselves according to the specific criteria you set before the start of the game. That criterion might be height, shoe size, birthday, hair length, or age. This is a great data processing activity that will also help your students get to know one another a little better.
Pyramid Math: Have everyone in the class find a partner. Each student should hold up some of the fingers of one hand when given a signal by the teacher. For the first round, the first student in each group that adds those two numbers correctly wins. One round consists of three adding problems, and the winner must correctly answer two out of the three problems the fastest. The winners face off for another adding round. The following rounds will be multiplying and subtracting. For the final round between the two top competitors, have the students add the two numbers and then square the answer (ex: 4+2=6; 6X6=36). Tailor the game to your students' grade level and ability.
Start the school year off right with one of these fun math activities. Have fun and good luck teachers!
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samsung blu ray playerBuy what you need for the first day of school but don’t buy too much for the rest of the year. Some items, such as pencils and pens, might be useful to stock up on if there is a great sale. But since many stores overstock on items, you may actually be able to find some bargains by scanning for sales after the back to school rush is over.
